WarSclerotic

NTI: Global Security Newswire – U.N. Powers Could Dodge New Iran Penalties, Say U.S. Officials.

MEMRI – Middle East Media Research Institute.

Al-Quds Al-Arabi editor ‘Abd Al-Bari ‘Atwan wrote: “The [February 25] tripartite meeting in Damascus of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, his Iranian guest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, was a ‘war council,’ [at which the three] outlined future courses of action and assigned tasks and roles in case of an Israeli attack on one of the sides, or on all three at once…

“Also [noteworthy was] the expanded meeting between Ahmadinejad and the commanders of the Palestinian [resistance] factions… The timing [of this meeting], the manner in which it was held, and the press conference that followed it indicate that a strategic alliance is coalescing and a new front is forming, to serve as a spearhead against the U.S.-Israel alliance and the Arab governments that will join it, openly or covertly, should war break out. The Iranian president assessed that this war will break out… within a few months…

“We are witnessing a new language, an unprecedented [level of] confidence, and a readiness [to endorse] reactions the likes of which we have never seen – especially on the part of the Arab regimes – since [the adoption of] the peace option… embodied by the Arab peace initiative, which was carefully concocted in the American kitchen by expert chefs…

“It seems that the Syrian leadership has determined its position: It has decided to shut the door on America’s cheap and pathetic attempts to court it, and [has resolved instead] to strengthen its strategic alliance with Iran. This was its clear response to the advice of U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, who demanded that Syria distance itself from Iran, the regional troublemaker…

“It seems that the imminence of conflict [in the region] has prompted [Syria] to abandon the course of quiet diplomacy and half-open doors to [rapprochement with] the West, and to begin preparing for the possibility of ‘the mother of all wars.”[2]

Lebanese Al-Akhbar Daily: A New Equation vis-à-vis Israel, with Iran Replacing Egypt

Ibrahim Al-Amin, chairman of the board of the pro-Syrian Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, wrote that whoever thought Syria would be intimidated by the threats of war against it and would distance itself from Iran has been proven wrong, and that the Damascus summit was meant to create a new balance of power vis-à-vis Israel, in which Iran takes the place of Egypt: “The young [members of] the March 14 [Forces] were not the only ones who spoke of Syria’s [alleged] intention to distance itself from Iran and from the resistance forces. In Saudi Arabia, Jordan, some European countries, and the U.S. State Department, there were also those who thought that [Syria would choose] this option.

“The basis for this [belief] was [their assessment] that Syria would be unable to withstand the threats of war against it, and that, faced with a choice between its own [survival] and its political position, the [Syrian] regime would quickly withdraw [from its alliance with Iran]…

“Then came the warnings: The Europeans conveyed direct threats from Israel and the U.S., to the effect that Syria would be a target [of attack] if it continued to transfer weapons to the resistance in Lebanon and Gaza, and that the continuation of its alliance with Iran would mean continued isolation and pressure [for Syria]… Influential circles in Tel Aviv, Washington, and other capitals thought that these threats would be enough to deter the opposite camp…

“[However, ultimately it was] Iran that conveyed a message to the U.S. and the West in general, and to Israel in particular – by means of Ahmadinejad’s visit to Damascus – to the effect that it was willing to supply Syria with all the support in needed to withstand any war [launched] against it. The visit ended with an Iranian-Syrian summit attended by Nasrallah, and with the convening of the Iranian conference for supporting the Palestinian resistance. [The aim of the summit and the conference] was to create a new equation vis-à-vis Israel, the essence of which is that the resistance forces will no longer agree to any war waged according to [Israel’s] perception…

“The notion that without Egypt the Arabs are unable to form a new equation for the conflict with Israel is no longer supported by reality. This is because Iran compensates for Egypt’s absence, both politically and militarily…

“The future of the Arab-Israeli conflict thus no longer depends upon one of the dangerous deviations in Arab [history, namely] the Camp David [Accords]…”[3]

Al-Quds Al-Arabi: The U.S. Did Not Provide Syria with Sufficient Incentive to Distance Itself from Iran

‘Abd Al-Bari ‘Atwan mocked the incentives offered to Syria in attempt to persuade it to distance itself from Iran: “Syria cannot withdraw from its strategic alliance with Iran, which has endured for over 30 years. It would be no exaggeration to say that [Syria] never even considered this option, because the alternatives offered to it were ridiculous and humiliating. Mrs. Clinton, whose demand that Syria distance itself from Iran violated [all] diplomatic and moral standards, offered Syria nothing in return, except some hints that the U.S. might recall its ambassador to Damascus – as though Syria cannot live without an American ambassador… What has Washington offered Syria in return for its moderate [policy]? Has it given it back the Golan? Has it [permitted] investments [in Syria]… or removed it from the list of terrorist states?…”[4]

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat columnist Muhammad Sadeq Al-Diyyab stated that the U.S. demand that Syria distance itself from Iran without any suitable compensation, “[such as] a serious vision for solving some of Syria’s problems, first and foremost the Golan Heights… [means] that the U.S. wants Syria to sacrifice several of its relationships for free…

“Syria cannot not be expected to be satisfied… with being seen as having the proximity or distance [in its relationships] forced on it by others… The U.S. – which is seen to be damaged by this [Syria-Iran] relationship – needs to look at its accounts, its policy, and its political discourse, and to distance itself from dictating, issuing orders, and forcing its will on others. The world has changed, and the time has come for the U.S. to listen to the Arabs’ just demands.”[5]

Saudi Columnist: The Iran-Syria Alliance is Long-Standing and Ideological

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat columnist Hamid Al-Majd wrote that foundation of the years-long Iran-Syria alliance is ideology – despite their obvious differences in ethnic origin and in their connection to the religion. He emphasized that Iran has military capability and influence, unlike the Sunni Arab world, which is rife with internal disputes: “…Some observers do not understand that… the Iran-Syria relationship is not like the Libya-Chad relationship, which waxes and wanes in accordance with the political atmosphere and individual mood. The [Iran-Syria] relationship is an example of the importance of ‘ideological affiliation’ in the deepening and stability of alliances in spite of the changes and calamities wrought by time.

“Many observers, in a superficial view, pinned their hopes on the certain collapse of the Iran-Syria alliance after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, or at the very least on its gradual weakening. Their view relied on [the fact that] Saddam was the bitter enemy of both countries… But the days that followed the fall of the Saddam regime proved that this alliance was long-term and deeply rooted, not transient…

“The Syria-Iran relationship developed on the economic and cultural levels, [and] was translated into several trade and cultural agreements… even though the Syrian regime is pure Ba’thist, ‘not religious,’ and a clear contradiction to the Iranian regime. [Likewise], the Syrians are Arabs, and their Iranian colleagues are Persians. Ultimately, ideological ties are the strongest and most stable – and this is what several Arab and Western commentators fail to comprehend.

“Facing this powerful alliance is the Sunni world, constituting the vast majority of the Muslim world – and most of which is not useful at all, because the Muslim world has no country that compares to Iran in ideological influence or in military [might]… Time has proven that the Iranians have a tremendous ability to plan and to influence. Iran, in its shrewdness, has successfully mocked and rejected the West with its ‘evasion’ on its nuclear capability, which it will ultimately use to strengthen its ideological influence – while some governments in the Sunni world are still struggling with their electorate [within their countries, in an attempt] to prove that they have disengaged their Islamic affiliation. [These countries’] identity has been lost – drowned in the disagreements that have caused their failure… [allowing] Iran and those around it to be the main players.”[6]

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Editor: Assad’s Contempt for Clinton Contradicts Syria’s Previous Statements

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat editor Tariq Alhomayed wrote: “Whilst U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that her country has asked the Syrians to distance themselves from Iran, the Syrian president [welcomed] his Iranian counterpart to Damascus, celebrating the occasion of Mawlid [the birth of the Prophet Mohammed]. [The two presidents] signed an agreement to cancel [the need for] travel visas between the two countries. Was this [a case of] Syria challenging the U.S. – or just public embarrassment [for the U.S.] in response to Secretary Clinton embarrassing Damascus, especially as Assad’s comments about Clinton were clearly sarcastic…

“But if Damascus is the one that determines how things go, and believes that its interest lies in consolidating its ties with Tehran, then why is Syria openly asking the Americans to intervene in negotiations with Israel[?]… If Damascus agrees with Ahmadinejad… that the ‘Zionist entity is on its way to disappearing,’ and ‘will be confronted by all nations in the region, especially Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq,’ then why is Syria cooperating with the Americans on security issues and with acknowledgement from Washington, as the number of foreign [jihad] fighters heading to Iraq [via its borders] has decreased?…

“…If the Syrians want to normalize relations with the U.S. and want the U.S. to mediate between Syria and Israel, then how can they fight on Ahmadinejad’s side and agree with him on eliminating Israel?… If the idea of Syria negotiating with Israel is accepted by Iran, then why does Tehran denounce others as traitors?…

“…[W]ho is deceiving whom? There is something not right about the Damascus-Tehran relationship today. The loud voice suggests that one side is nervous whilst the other is portraying something contrary to what is on the inside. Let us wait and see!”[7]

Endnotes:
[1] About the Assad-Ahmadinejad summit, see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 2829, “At Damascus Summit, Ahmadinejad and Assad Attack U.S. and Israel; Ahmadinejad: Israel’s Elimination is Near; Assad: The Resistance Is Winning,” February 26, 2010,

Israel’s pre-emptive nuclear precedent.

Sitting across from Iran in the Gulf, the world’s largest oil producer is undeniably as threatened by a nuclear Iran as Israel is. While Saudi Arabia may have an interest in the higher oil prices which would result from targeted air strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, the Saudis also know they represent the chief guarantor of economic recovery for a battered global economy requiring cheap oil.

What Saudi Arabia is not, however, is the publicized target of Iran’s soon-to-be-nuclear missile arsenal.

Israel knows that the window for stopping Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is quickly closing. Action must be taken soon to prevent Iran’s manic leaders from obtaining the world’s most lethal weapon to achieve their goal of “wiping Israel off the map.” Tragically, the international community appears feckless in stopping Iran — even with widespread protests against an increasingly hated Iranian regime and growing unity in the Iranian opposition movement.

As one of Israel’s few remaining vocal allies, Canada must support Israel. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stated an “attack on Israel is attack on Canada.” If Israel follows its historic precedent and conducts unilateral military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Harper must stand up for Israel’s right to self-defence against the world’s most dangerous regime and largest state sponsor of terrorism — the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Decision makers, be warned! – Haaretz – Israel News.

By Emily B. Landau

As repeated deadlines related to Iran pass, and evidence of its military nuclear program mounts, it might appear that the world has woken up to the problem, and is ready to adopt a tougher stance. Yet, beyond some tough-sounding rhetoric about the need for more severe and targeted steps, nothing very serious is actually on the international agenda – certainly not the so-called crippling sanctions. Indeed, China is expressing a new and more adamant opposition to sanctions, Russia too is dragging its feet, and the new EU foreign minister – well, she seems to have not even realized that the latest round of diplomacy has already failed. But perhaps more troubling are two additional themes that have become increasingly evident as the international community becomes more and more aware that it is powerless to stop Iran from progressing toward its goal. Both themes reflect the dangerous cynicism that characterizes international attitudes today on this topic, at both official and unofficial levels. The first theme is manifested in a growing tendency among analysts who were previously dubious that Iran was even seeking nuclear weapons, to forget the problem-ridden efforts of the past seven years that were meant to check Iran’s advances, and to focus instead on the idea that a nuclear Iran is now a fait accompli. The tenor of this blase approach is: So what if Iran acquires nuclear weapons? It’s no different from other states that have built a bomb. Suddenly, the lack of a smoking gun, and/or the clear evidence of Iran’s noncompliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; challenges that plagued efforts to constrain Tehran for years; are brushed aside. And Iran’s advance toward the bomb – which the same parties once considered unsubstantiated U.S. or Israeli paranoia – is now treated as an undisputable and unavoidable fact. And who cares if Iran cheated to get to where it is? All is fair in love and balance of power. At least for Iran. The second, and more implicit, theme is also the more cynical and dangerous one in terms of its implications. It involves the option of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Officials whose statements were previously in the vein of, “Oh no, Israel cannot be allowed to attack!” are now beginning to sound as if they mean: “Israel cannot refrain from attacking.” Sometimes the feeling is that the speaker is actually hoping that Israel will decide to go ahead and attack Iran. Think about it. At this stage, even in light of official American rhetoric to the contrary, an Israeli attack would actually have some clear advantages for the Western states confronting Iran. First, it would immediately take the heat off the West, and divert attention from the fact that its efforts to stop Iran have failed. It would have the added benefit of releasing the United States from the need to follow through on its own threats of “consequences.” Second, an attack would most likely cause at least some damage to Iranian facilities, which would be positive in and of itself. It would also shake things up enough so that the United States could then sweep in and try to restrain Israel (after it has attacked), while working to restore stability in the region more generally, possibly shoring up desperately needed foreign policy points for the Obama administration. Finally, all blame for aggression would be conveniently directed at Israel. Although the United States cannot escape being implicated to some degree, the strong rhetorical position it has taken against an Israeli attack can be expected to minimize the fallout. Indeed, even Iran may secretly harbor a desire for an Israeli attack on its facilities. This idea is fueling an odd speculation making the rounds in Washington these days, as analysts struggle to explain why Iran has moved almost all of its low enriched uranium (just short of 2,000 kg) to an above-ground facility that can enrich to 20 percent. Doing so exposes the LEU to attack, hence the theory that Iran actually intends to lure Israel to make a move, in order to spur Iranians to rally around the regime, as well as to allow their country to look like the victim rather than the aggressor. The fact that an Israeli attack on Iran could actually serve the interests of both Iran and the countries that confront it is an unnerving idea that cannot be dismissed out of hand. The highly cynical benefits that others could gain at Israel’s expense should make Israeli decision-makers even more wary of contemplating military action against Iran, which would in effect let the international community off the hook. Emily B. Landau is director of the Arms Control and Regional Security program at the Institute for National Security Studies, Tel Aviv University.

DEBKA.

Ehud Barak

Everything was set for the United States to move speedily towards new, stiff sanctions against Iran for its nuclear intransigence, when Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak arrived in Washington February 25 to tie up the last ends with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
The official cover for the Israeli minister’s trip was a lecture at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He had come straight from a general staff evaluation of the just-concluded five-day military command exercise staged by the IDF’s Northern Command February 21-25.
This exercise was invaluable in that it tested operational communications at the command level in a potential four-front conflict in which Israel might come under attack from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iran. Many of the dislocations of Israel’s military confrontation with Hizballah in 2006 arose from communications failures between the Chief of Staff and the regional commanders. The latest exercise focused on correcting that fault and improving the operational links between the chief of staff and northern command heads.
With Clinton, Barak went over Washington’s steps for expanding the sanctions regime against Iran, DEBKA-Net-Weekly sources in Washington report.
Their discussion was grounded in the assumption that the US and Israel were fully synchronized on this policy and that the White House had decided to put in place the punitive measures compiled by a special State Department task force for Iran – without necessarily waiting for the Security Council to act.

Clinton speaks with deceptive clarity

As part of the joint planning, Israel sent its Minister for Strategic Affairs, Moshe Yaalon and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer to Beijing to try and persuade the Chinese into letting sanctions go through the Security Council without opposition, in other words, to withhold their veto.
Fischer is a familiar figure to Chinese officials from his years at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. He was able to advise them authoritatively that Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon capacity would push the world’s oil prices up by at least 30-50 percent, to the serious detriment of the Chinese economy.
Clinton laid out for Barak’s benefit the five Iranian elements targeted by the new sanctions her department had drawn up, made stronger if the US were to be joined by Britain, France, Italy, Germany and additional European governments:
They are listed here by our Washington sources:
1. All Iranian banks would be boycotted by the United States and its European allies – and not just a selected number as at present.
2. Participating governments would prevent investments going through for Iran, mainly by withholding government and banking insurance from investors.
3. Should a pump break down in one of its oil or gas fields, Iran’s energy industry would not be able to find any Western supplier for new equipment or obtain credit for a purchase and so eventually break down.
4. All the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ military, technical, financial and economic arms and interests within Iran and abroad would be subject to restrictive measures. In addition, individual senior commanders and business executives would be blacklisted, be hit by travel bans, their assets frozen and their overseas operations curtailed.
5. Third-party governments and business companies engaged in “re-export” activities on Iran’s behalf would qualify for punitive measures. Such steps would target non-Iranian firms, especially in Dubai and other parts of the Gulf as well as the Far East, who shop on world markets for the goods required by Iran, some of which are proscribed under three rounds of former UN sanctions against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Israel asks the US to “listen with Jewish ears”

When the Israeli minister asked Secretary Clinton when the fourth sanctions regime would be enforced, she said as soon as the first week of March, DEBKA-Net-Weekly sources report. They would be introduced gradually and be fully in place, she hoped, by the end of the month.
Clinton was so clear and definite that Barak did not question her about whether the Obama administration intended waiting for the Security Council to act, or give up and go through with the measures unilaterally.
A few hours after seeing Clinton, the Israeli minister arrived at the Pentagon to meet Secretary Gates for a conversation that was different in content yet complementary to the talks with the secretary of state.
It fell under two main headings.
In the first, Barak presented a list of weapons systems Israel needs urgently to stand up to a four-front assault, chiefly different types of missiles and electronic systems, according to our military sources.
The minister complained that the list was still unapproved although it had been submitted to Washington three months ago and the sand in the hourglass for war was running out fast. He stressed that all the requested systems needed to be present in Israel before any flare-up of hostilities – or at least present at the US emergency depot in the Israeli Negev.
Gates promised to review the list and send his reply in the coming days.
In the second part of their conversation, the US and Israeli defense officials discussed differences over the virtues of armed force against Iran.

How far is Washington reconciled to a nuclear-armed Iran?

Referring to the internal debate in the Obama administration, Barak said he was aware of a school of thought developing in Washington which said America could live with a nuclear Iran. He used the term ‘”mitigate and contain a nuclear Iran’. As they talked, the minister spoke of a “semi-nuclear Iran,” in reference to the willingness of parts of the administration to accept an Iran able to build a nuclear weapon but not yet having done so.
I do not share this willingness, said Barak. I am therefore asking you (Gates) for one favor: Ask your president to instruct your Iran experts and analysts to listen to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad “with Jewish ears,” so as to understand what is going through Israeli heads when they hear him.
He made the request on Feb. 25, little knowing that three days later, on Feb. 28, the Iranian president would lay bare his anti-Israel doctrine in the mostly shockingly vicious anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli terms, beyond even the preaching of the most extreme anti-Semitic and radical Muslim circles.
(More about this in separate items on US Syrian policy and Ahmadinejad’s purpose in Damascus)
Gates offered no direct answer to Barak’s appeal.
They parted with a decision for Barak to return to Washington for another meeting with Gates at the end of March, by which time the fourth round of US and European sanctions should have gone into effect.

Uranium is important, but not the ultimate issue

Taking that as a given, Barak delivered his lecture at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, sharing with his audience for the first time certain revealing details of Iran’s military nuclear program.
Our sources have obtained the lecture’s pre-edited content:
I think that the last report of Amano, the new head of the IAEA, is highly important because it shows that the international agency can, if the will is there, call a spade a spade and stop all these verbal gymnastics about what the Iranians are really doing.
If they develop neutron sources, if they make an implosion, experiment on heavy metals with an array or arabesques of simultaneously activated detonators and if they are working so intensively on two hemispheres with (a sizeable quantity there ?), it means that they are not just trying to create a Manhattan Project-like crude nuclear device. They are trying to jump directly into the second- or second-and-a-half generation of nuclear warheads that could be installed on top of ground-to-ground missiles with ranges that will cover not just Israel but Moscow or Paris for that purpose.
And I think that we can like it or not. I believe that most of us do not like it, but we cannot close our eyes to what’s really happened in such a delicate corner of the world. If Iran will not be stopped from moving there, it will reach at a certain point nuclear military capability and one can close his eyes and see what it means.
A nuclear Iran means the end of any nonproliferation regime because Saudi Arabia and probably another two or three members of the Middle Eastern community will feel compelled to reach nuclear capability as well. And it will open the door for any third-rate dictator who has a nuclear ambition to understand that if he is strong enough mentally to defy any kind of threats from the world, he will reach nuclear military capability.

Clinton’s shocker en route to Buenos Aires

Barak’s message was tailored to his audience of key political, intelligence and military figures in the US establishment, some of whom are active in Iranian policy-making. He was telling them that “you” may be fixated on the uranium enrichment controversy but, however important this issue may be, it is less critical for the big picture of Iran’s nuclear activities. What really counts today is that Iran has moved on to developing neutron sources, creating an implosion, and carrying out experiments on heavy metals with an array or arabesque of simultaneously activated detonators – these are the truly important issues.
Upon his return home, Sunday, February 28 to Israel, Barak lost no time in briefing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on his Washington talks. They agreed that, as far as Israel was concerned, American and possibly European sanctions were finally on track.
They were startled two days later to hear Clinton telling reporters during her flight to Buenos Aires:
“We are moving expeditiously and thoroughly in the Security Council,” she said. “I can’t give you an exact date, but I would assume sometime in the next several months.”
Israeli leaders realized with a sinking feeling that the Obama administration had no intention of launching any tough sanctions any time soon, without or without European cooperation, except in the unlikely event that they could survive Russian-Chinese opposition intact at the UN Security Council.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly sources note that this is not the Obama administration’s first success in stringing Israel along. In the winter of 2009, the White House promised Netanyahu and Barak sanctions would go into effect by the end of December.
The end of December came and went without any real progress towards sanctions – then as now. US officials insist that the administration is standing by its sanctions policy despite difficulties with a Security Council motion. They have no answer when asked why the US is not going ahead unilaterally.

US pressuring Israel not to attack Iran – Arab News.

By BARBARA FERGUSON | ARAB NEWS

Published: Mar 4, 2010 10:53 PM Updated: Mar 4, 2010 10:53 PM

WASHINGTON: Concerned that Israel may launch a surprise attack against Iran, the US has increased pressure on Tel Aviv while extending its deadline for stronger sanctions against Tehran.

American officials said this week that sanctions, both international and domestic, which were previously expected by February, would not be achieved until late April. If indeed a UN resolution on international sanctions is passed sometime in April, the decision will be in place in time for the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, scheduled for May.

Meanwhile, Obama has sent high-ranking officials to Tel Aviv, in efforts to reassure Israelis that sanctions against Iran are being put into place, and urging Israel not to launch an airstrike aimed at Iran’s nuclear sites.

Vice President Joe Biden will visit Jerusalem as part of his Middle East tour next week of March. Biden is the most senior American official from the Obama administration to visit Israel. His trip tops several weeks of high-profile visits that have included Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Most of these officials kept their talks with Israelis behind closed doors. But Mullen took the unusual step of convening a press conference upon his arrival in Jerusalem on Feb. 14 and sending a clear message to the Israeli public: An Israeli strike against Iran would “be a big, big, big problem for all of us, and I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences of a strike.”

Some visits, however, had a much lower profile. Such a trip was the one the CIA’s director, Leon Panetta, made to Israel in late January, and another was the visit of senior Israeli defense officials to Washington a week later.

“Netanyahu is playing poker and hiding his most important card: the Israel Defense Forces’ true capabilities to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations,” Haaretz said Thursday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is functioning as a super-adviser to Netanyahu for national security affairs, told reporters this week that “the clock for the Iranian regime’s downfall is ticking.”

Between the key players:  Iran, Israel and the US, Obama, holds the weakest hand, Haaretz noted.  “This is so because of domestic political weakness and because he can’t seriously threaten (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad or Netanyahu. Obama doesn’t want to attack Iran himself and will find it hard to restrain Israel at the moment of truth.”

“Currently, the feeling in the US is that you can no longer count on Israel to see the broader picture and you can no longer take Israel’s cooperation for granted,” Yoram Peri, director of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, told reporters. “Israel’s politics became more extreme, and its sense of besiegement is stronger, and that gave power to more extreme voices in the country’s leadership.”

Meanwhile, Iran came under renewed attack this week for its decision to make a higher grade of enriched uranium, a move that weapons experts say would dramatically shorten the country’s path to nuclear weapons.

The United States and several European allies took turns denouncing Iran’s behavior at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and a US diplomat warned that new UN sanctions may be inevitable.

“Iran seems determined to defy, obfuscate and stymie,” said Ambassador Glyn Davies, head of the U.S. delegation to the UN nuclear watchdog.

A highly critical report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency last week has led to stepped-up calls from the United States and Europe for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran. The West still faces a strenuous battle to win over China, which has insisted on the need for further negotiations aimed at persuading the Islamic republic to place its nuclear program under greater international control.

Despite the diplomatic assault, the prospects for securing international support for tough sanctions against Iran remain uncertain. An attempt by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to win Brazil’s backing appeared to fizzle Wednesday; after a meeting with Clinton in Brasilia, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told a news conference it was not wise “to push Iran into a corner.”

On Capitol Hill, legislators are also at odds on the Iran-Israel conundrum.  Some believe that peaceful diplomacy is the best way for the United States to deal with Iran and its potential development as a nuclear power, while others say Iran wouldn’t hesitate to use a nuclear weapon on Israel and perhaps elsewhere.

Hamas, Hezbollah Could Push Israel To War | AVIATION WEEK.

By David Eshel
Tel Aviv

Israel is always on high alert when it comes to the potential for war with its neighbors, particularly the two groups viewed as proxies of Iran and Syria: Hamas and Hezbollah. Though neither seems particularly eager for a full-blown conflict with Israel at present, defense analysts see a number of developments that could lead to another war with one or both, perhaps as soon as this year.

One reason for this view is that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon continue to be supplied with ordnance from Iran. Thousands of Hezbollah rockets are poised to strike Israel again, though for almost four years the border between Lebanon and northern Israel has been remarkably quiet. One reason may be that 11,000 soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and 15,000 Lebanese army troops are more effective at keeping Hezbollah’s Shiite militia at bay. The tranquility may be illusory—Tehran and Damascus could encourage Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel in furtherance of their regional aims. Iran has also threatened retaliation if Israel attacks its nuclear program; and with popular unrest a constant threat to the leadership in Tehran, a war with Israel, fought through Hamas or Hezbollah, could be one way of diverting Iranian public attention away from the regime.

Other developments are raising tensions as well. In the year since the Gaza incursion called Operation Cast Lead ended, Hamas has made a major effort to restore its internal security forces. The military/terrorist wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has been rebuilt to its previous strength with its military capabilities substantially expanded. The smuggling of weapons into Gaza has accelerated beyond expectations, in spite of Israel and Egypt sealing their respective borders with the area and Israeli interception of arms shipments at sea and in Africa. Much of this weaponry originates in Iran, whose rulers are eager to extend their regional influence to the Mediterranean. Restoring Hamas’s arsenal with advanced ordnance is a major part of Iran’s strategy of targeting Israel from Lebanon and Gaza.

The Hamas weapons inventory has grown enormously in the past year. Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, told the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee last month that Hamas’s current capabilities are “better than they were on the eve of Operation Cast Lead.” Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups “will continue to grow stronger in 2010,” he added. Diskin said Hamas will continue efforts to smuggle rockets into Gaza that have a range exceeding 50 km. (31 mi.), along with “antiaircraft missiles, antitank missiles and . . . other . . . weapons.” Last November, the head of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, told the committee that Hamas had conducted a successful trial launch of a rocket with a 60-km. range, which could endanger the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

Writing in the Beirut daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, Ibrahim al-Amin, who is affiliated with an Islamic militant group, warned that Hamas and other Palestinian factions have been training for a year with antiaircraft missiles and with large explosives that could blow up an armored vehicle the size of a Merkava tank—a 65-ton vehicle. According to al-Amin, the groups also practiced firing medium- and long-range missiles, as well as targeting Israeli communities “up to 100 km.” from Gaza. Israeli experts believe this last claim is, however, overstated. Nevertheless, with more accurate rockets, Hamas could attack airfields in southern Israel, which they attempted but failed to do during Operation Cast Lead. Hamas is also believed to have acquired Russian RPG-29 antitank grenade launchers and Kornet antitank missiles, which were used successfully by Hezbollah against Merkava tanks in the Second Lebanon War of 2006.

Adding to these concerns are signs that another war could be triggered by the Al Qaeda offshoots that are spreading across southern Gaza. Worries about Al Qaeda are not new in Gaza. Shin Bet noted in its 2009 annual report that operatives from a range of groups in the global jihad movement have appeared in the region during the past year. Dozens of terrorists have joined new military factions in Gaza such as the Salafist group Jaljalat (thunder in Arabic) and Jund Ansarullah. Far from welcoming them, Hamas leaders are aware of the threat these groups pose to their control, and have taken brutal measures to suppress them. Tensions climaxed last July when Hamas clashed with global jihad operatives who were using a Rafah mosque for a rally. During the battle, many global jihad commanders were killed or wounded. Nevertheless, the incident did not prevent survivors from continuing their clandestine activities, and the movement is taking hold among the masses in Gaza.

A senior White House terrorism expert warned recently that the Al Qaeda networks in Gaza could become as dangerous and menacing as the jihadist strongholds in Yemen. This threat may also have prompted Egypt to crack down on the Gaza border. Jihadi access to the Sinai, which Egypt controls, would not only imperil the peninsula, but might well spill into Egypt, emboldening the antigovernment Muslim Brotherhood.

While Hamas has virtually stopped firing Qassam rockets into Israel since Operation Cast Lead, the situation along the border remains explosive. The Israeli offensive severely damaged Hamas’s military, security and administrative operations in Gaza. Civilian infrastructure is virtually nonexistent, and much of the housing remains in rubble. The Gaza Strip is almost entirely sealed by Israel, and lately by Egypt, which is building the deeply dug “Mubarak Wall” along the Rafah border, formerly the Philadelphi Route. The objective is to severely disrupt the smuggling carried out in an extensive network of tunnels under the border. The wall is formidable, composed of bomb-resistant steel that is virtually impossible to dismantle or destroy, at least by smugglers. Though it will not end tunneling, it is expected to stem most of the smuggling, which has been a key source of arms and revenue for Hamas.

Cairo also plans to build a harbor along its sea border with Gaza, for use by navy patrols to monitor the Egyptian side of the Rafah shore. The harbor dock would be 10 meters (33 ft.) deep and extend for 25 meters from shore. The harbor would further restrict Palestinian fishermen who are already subject to actions by the Israeli naval blockade.

Although Israel maintains a strict naval exclusion zone off Gaza, Palestinian militants recently launched a new seaborne weapon at Israel’s beaches—floating barrels filled with explosives and attached to foam buoys, which resemble those in use by Gaza fishermen. Militant groups in Gaza have claimed responsibility for the barrel barrage, saying it was in retaliation for the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai. The militants accused Israel of planning the killing; Israel responded that it had no part in the murder, though recent evidence suggests otherwise.

The idea of floating bombs to shore may go back to January 2002, when a ship filled with a load of weapons for Gaza was seized by Israel in the Red Sea. Naval experts discovered floatable waterproof containers on board that were made in Iran. Equipped with mechanisms that keep them submerged at a specific depth, the containers were intended to drift underwater with the current toward shore out of sight of Israeli patrol boats. The containers were big enough to transport large weapons that could not be smuggled through the tunnels. The tactic may be continuing: Container ships from Iran have been sighted in the eastern Mediterranean for months. Israel and the U.S. Navy have apprehended some, but others could have reached Lebanon and Syria. Dropping the containers beyond the exclusion zone off Gaza, they could have drifted submerged toward shore, escaping detection by Israeli radar.

The IDF is preparing for the possibility that in a conflict with Hamas, it will be ordered to retake the Philadelphi Route, focusing on Rafah, the lifeline of Hamas’s arms-smuggling activities. Plans for such an operation have been worked out and will likely include long-term deployment of several units in Rafah, where troops will go house-to-house searching for tunnels and destroying them.

Such a plan was presented to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government ahead of Operation Cast Lead. At the time, the government deemed the operation too costly in terms of casualties. In a recent interview with Israel Radio, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yom-Tov Samia, former head of the IDF’s southern command, hinted at the possibility that the army will retake the Philadelphi Route, saying, “We must create a situation in which Hamas runs out of oxygen.”

Many experts believe that Israel should have targeted Rafah during Operation Cast Lead instead of deploying troops to Gaza City, a move that might have kept the threat of future conflicts farther in the future.

Photo: Israel Defense Forces

The Riverdale Press: It’s time to de-claw the Iranian tiger.

To the editor:

I looked at The New York Times online before beginning this letter. As I suspected, there was not one article about Iran and the threat it poses to Western Civilization, the United States and Israel.

Not so long ago the Congress supported an attack on Iraq because we suspected Saddam might be planning to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Today, although we know that Iran is close to developing an atomic bomb and the means to deliver one, there is a deafening silence from our leaders and those one might expect to be leaders of the western world.

Our secretary of state says something about sanctions, our president also occasionally makes a statement about a nuclear Iran being “unacceptable,” but both are whistling in the wind and making statements that will have no affect on Iran, but are designed to later allow them to claim that they tried to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Politicians avoid serious suggestions on facing the Iranian threat. Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Eliot Engel seem to have lost their ability to suggest meaningful action. The most they can do is support sanctions. They know that sanctions will not accomplish anything. Sanctions had no affect on Iraq, nor will they have any affect on Iran.

It is not only political leaders who seek to avoid doing anything that might change Iran’s course but also our media.

When is the last time you saw an investigative program on TV about Iran and the threat it poses? A documentary on the greatest threat to world peace seems to escape public TV or any other media, newspapers and magazines included. Why?

With Iran boasting that it will wipe Israel off the map, one would think Jewish leaders would be rallying the masses against our passive Iranian policy. Not so! The silence is reminiscent of the silence of American Jewry and the western world that accompanied the Holocaust. We saw negotiations between Hitler and the democracies similar to those we now have between the West and Iran.

Today we see the same promise of a leader to kill and the same impotence of the democracies to challenge him. The price the world paid then was between 50 and 70 million lives. Today, with atomic bombs, we may expect the price to be higher.

Many thought the creation of the United Nations would prevent World-War-II-type destruction from happening again. We know that the U.N., as now structured, cannot protect us. Europe, which suffered so much for its failure to confront Hitler when he began to contest the existing peace, seems to have forgotten its history.

They are happy to bury their heads in the sand and hope that things will work out OK.

They didn’t before and they will not now. Iran, which sponsors terrorism, will not hesitate to supply nuclear weapons to groups that will use them, and if we believe what they say, they will use them first to destroy Israel.

I know there are many who abhor the thought of a pre-emptive strike. In a world where we confront atomic armed adversaries who believe that death achieved in attacking us is to be prized, dare we wait to be attacked? That would be the height of folly. It would fly in the face of the history lesson we should have learned, and it puts our vulnerable cities out as tempting targets for the associates of those who struck the Twin Towers.

Now is not the time to plead for sanctions, but the time to declaw the tiger.

Hizbollah’s quandary: most Lebanese don’t want a war – The National Newspaper.

Michael Young

• Last Updated: March 03. 2010 9:35PM UAE / March 3. 2010 5:35PM GMT

<!–

–>During the Syrian-Iranian summit in Damascus last week, Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s secretary general, was invited to join the Syrian and Iranian presidents Bashar al Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the rostrum. You would have been forgiven for thinking that Mr Nasrallah was Lebanon’s head of state at that gathering of worthies.

Ultimately, though, Mr Ahmadinejad’s statements told the real story. When he declared that the peoples of the Middle East, including the Lebanese, would stand up against Israel in the event of a war, it was clear that Mr Nasrallah had been invited as the honoured sacrificial lamb who would confirm that promise. Hizbollah will be in the front trenches of any conflict between Israel and Iran, and somehow in this scenario very little attention has been paid to the majority of Lebanese who have no desire to serve as cannon fodder on Tehran’s behalf.

There has been much talk about a war in the Middle East. Where it would start and how it would end is a matter of debate, but the fears conceal a more complex reality about how a conflagration might affect Hizbollah. The party has turned on the bravado, with one parliamentarian declaring this week that “Lebanon has become more powerful now while the Israelis have become more vulnerable”. Hizbollah has reportedly acquired anti-aircraft missiles from Syria, and Mr Nasrallah has vowed to bomb Tel Aviv if Israel bombs Beirut. However, there is more to victory than that.

The consensus is that Hizbollah does not relish a new war. As a military organisation it thrives on tension, yet Hizbollah also has a constituency whose qualms cannot be ignored. If one community was most frightened by Mr Ahmadinejad’s comments, it was Lebanon’s Shiites, who would bear the brunt of an Israeli attack. During the 2006 conflict, one million Shiites were displaced for a month and made to live in public facilities, schools, and parks. Hizbollah called that cataclysm a “divine victory”, mainly to absorb any Shiite backlash — a move facilitated by the rapid and massive injection of Iranian funds to compensate the victims.

That game, however, cannot be played every few years. Israel is aware
that its strongest suit in a future war is devastation. Israeli officials have declared time and again that in its next clash with Lebanon it would target not just Hizbollah, but also the Lebanese state. This means that Lebanon’s infrastructure (which Israel partially spared in 2006) would be fair game. The country’s economy could be ravaged as the Israelis would almost certainly hit the electricity and water grids, road networks, ports, and much more – not to mention undermine the economic confidence that Lebanon relies upon to remain afloat financially.

Hizbollah’s ability to deter Israel remains limited, although the party suggests that it has managed to impose a balance of terror. Its missiles and anti-aircraft weapons might have some impact on Israeli actions, but any full-scale escalation, because of its magnitude and unpredictability, would create outcomes with more political than strictly military consequences. An extended conflict would create pressures on Hizbollah domestically, both among Shiites and other Lebanese whose livelihoods would be a hostage to the party’s whims. It might also risk a wider war with Syria, inviting urgent foreign mediation to find a solution.

Hizbollah and Israel have framed their mutual threats in terms of self-defence. Barring an error, both sides will avoid coming to blows today. Hizbollah knows that the violence of an Israeli response might weaken its standing at home while forcing it to waste a valuable military deterrent primarily serving Iran. The Israeli priority is to undermine the Iranian nuclear programme, so that a Lebanon war would only detract from this. But what happens if Israel bombs Iran because international efforts have failed to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon?

Hizbollah would doubtless be called upon to retaliate against Israel, but things would not be quite as simple as that. The party, unable to persuade Shiites that they must suffer for Iran, would have to goad Israel into striking first, making its own response look like a defensive measure. This it could do, let’s say, by allowing rockets to be fired across the border, perhaps by pro-Syrian Palestinian groups. Israel, seeing an opening to damage the party’s political influence in Lebanon, might readily take the bait and engage in massive retaliation.

It’s anyone’s guess what the upshot of such an upheaval might be, as an infinite number of variables will intervene to frustrate everyone’s calculations. However, less discussed is another situation in which Israel and Hizbollah might square off. If Iran succeeds in developing a nuclear weapon in the face of international opposition, Israel might decide that Lebanon takes default precedence and try to eliminate the Hizbollah irritant to its north. How such an operation would be provoked is another matter. The paradox is that a Lebanese conflict seems more probable once Israel determines it can do nothing against Iran.

In all cases, it is intangibles that will determine who wins and loses, or whether stalemate prevails. Hizbollah’s strength is also its weakness: the party’s popular support among Shiites is a weapon it cannot abuse. Hizbollah’s ability to intimidate its Lebanese partners would also diminish in the shadow of a destructive Israeli war inflicted on all. The Israelis sense this, which is why the spectre of war will never be far away from Lebanon, even as Israel’s leaders, too, must determine how their population will react if caught in an intense missile war.

What makes this so difficult to stomach is that the shots are being called thousands of miles away, by an Iranian regime that has surrounded itself with a bodyguard of crises to protect its interests. The Lebanese can, legitimately, lament the fact that they will have a front-row seat, courtesy of Mr Ahmadinejad and a pliant Mr Nasrallah.

Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut

60% of Americans: Only force can stop Iran – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Fox News poll shows most US citizens believe only military option will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms but US security experts call on Obama to oppose attack

Yitzhak Benhorin, Washington